


Dark Heart of Envy

by lustfulpasiphae (miraphora)



Series: Hawk of the Marches [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood Magic, Blood and Gore, Envy Demons (Dragon Age), F/M, Gen, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:55:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraphora/pseuds/lustfulpasiphae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This begins with a failed Harrowing in Skyhold and the fallout that follows. Parts of it have been written out of sequence and some parts haven’t been written at all yet because I am a terrible person. They are arranged in chronological order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dark Heart of Envy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The horror that stretches up above them is nothing but a knobby, knotted torso ending in a bulbous head and spindly limbs. An Envy demon. Here, in the heart of Skyhold.

Lysas is in the kitchens when they come. Normally he would not be about the Keep at this time of night—he has slept better here within these walls than he feels he has since long before the Conclave, though sometimes he has…strange dreams, and sees strange things in the Fade on the other side of the Veil in this place. But it is wartime, and while the mages are overseen by Enchanter Fiona and she is a caring leader, the mages are still feared by the people of Skyhold, and sometimes simple things like an evening meal go astray, or there is not enough to feed the mouths of all—and sometimes the youngest apprentices go hungry.

Lysas is a soft-touch, and cannot resist the pleading or sad eyes of children. He reasons with himself, as he stands before the larder, contemplating the halved wheel of cheese and the day-old bread, that the Inquisitor is a kind woman under her fierce tattoos and armor and her piercing hawk eyes—she talked to him once, at Redcliffe, and those eyes were gentle when she told him to be careful—and she would not begrudge them the food. A very small part of him wonders why Enchanter Fiona has not gone to the Inquisitor to explain the myriad small indignities and persecutions being waged against the mages in the shadows, but he reminds himself that the Enchanter is very busy with so many mages in her care.  And perhaps she has, and it is the Inquisitor who is busy. Either way, it is Lysas who the young mages come to, and it is Lysas whose hands will take this bread, and Lysas who is—

Lysas who is standing, startled and a bit guilty with his ill-gotten largesse clasped against his chest, when the kitchen door that leads to the stableyard bursts open and darkly robed and hooded figures hurry in, clutching between them a slim figure whose head is wreathed in a muffling sack.

The only light in the kitchen is the muted glow from the banked coals in the sizeable hearth, but a mage light flickers suddenly into being above a raised hand, and there are exclamations of annoyance and dismay and—anger.

Lysas freezes. He knows this tableau. He has—he has been the slim, struggling figure who even now has found their voice and is cursing in thick, countrified Orlesian. “A Harrowing, but—“

“Grab him and shut him up, for the Maker’s sake! What a bleeding disaster.” That voice is rough and careless and uncouth. Lysas doesn’t recognize it, but there has been a stready trickle of penitent—and not so penitent—apostates flocking to the Inquisition in the months since they arrived in Skyhold.

Lysas is torn—to use force against a fellow mage in this place would be grievous sin, but this—this *should not be*. A wisp of hesitant fire curls around his fingers, but before he can be forced into the choice of fighting his own brethren, one of the hooded figures lunges at him and seizes him by the back of his neck—there is a thunderous clap inside his head, and then Lysas collapses.

* * *

 

Lysas regains consciousness slowly, his head aching and ears ringing faintly. He opens his eyes slowly, struggling against lethargy. The back of his head rests against a stone wall. The room before him has the echoing and dusty feel of disuse. Columns run along either side of the room, and there is a pile of debris to one side, and a long, crumpled crimson carpet carelessly cast aside to the other.

But directly before him—

Directly before him is a Harrowing Circle. He recognizes the elements: the stylized spiraling points curling out from the center—here rendered in some kind of red paint on the dusty stones instead of the carved reliefs of a true Circle—the focus points painted larger than the branching curves. There is a bowl balanced on a stand in the center of the long room, glowing with a frosty blue light at its center. He can smell it, now that he’s thinking about it, though it’s a bit off—minty and cold and sweet like wintergreen and fresh snow, but with a metallic undertone that seems wrong.

The Orlesian girl is standing at the edge of the circle, a hooded figure to either side of her, holding her arms. She is stiff-backed and her head is held at a tight angle, a dark brown braid trailing down between her slender shoulder blades nearly to her hips. Lysas takes in the room. There is no Templar here. Only hooded and robed mages, and the girl, and himself.

A boot scrapes to his right, and another robed figure strides toward the circle, her hood thrown back onto her shoulders. Lysas frowns a little, part of him cataloging the difficulty he has moving the muscles of his face, thinking hazily that she is familiar—short dark hair, pursed and bitter lips, long face, large round ears…

Linnea Harcourt. She had not come with them to Skyhold after Redcliffe. He knows this, remembers clearly that she was not among their number, remembers her belligerent support of the Tevinter magisters. She had not cared for the Inquisitor, even with the offer of alliance. Lysas had always assumed she fled with the remnants of the magisters who had managed to evade the Inquisition forces.

But here she is, in Skyhold, in the heart of the Inquisition—Lysas tries to open his mouth, to speak, and finds his voice trammeled, his movement stifled.  _Ah_. The corners of his eyes draw down very slightly with sadness and dismay as he realizes what has given the metallic tang to the scent of the lyrium.

Blood.

* * *

 

Linnea crosses her arms over her chest, dark hard eyes taking in the culmination of her preparations. The young woman is not quite as young as she could have liked—and that stiff, defiant posture gives her the slightest pause—but at least one of the spineless mages of this would-be Circle has begun to question her influence and her methods, and it is more than time that she put this plan in motion and reap the rewards. The thought of returning to the Tevinter magisters with word of this coup—disaster in the heart of the Inquisition, the arrogant Inquisitor’s weakness exposed for the world to see—fills Linnea with fierce pleasure.

Infiltrating this fortress had been too easy—the mages treated as grudging allies and barely accorded the comforts given to the beasts in the stables, despite their eager and willing assistance in thwarting the Old God—the attention given to their arrival and leaving only the distrust of scorn and never the healthy scrutiny of caution for betrayal. Southerners were so predictable in their attitudes toward mages, as if the power given by the Maker Himself rendered them undisciplined children that must be managed and contained, but never respected. Linnea’s mouth forms a dark moue of distaste—to think that fool Fiona had led them into this servitude and called it freedom!

Well, no matter. Linnea would show the lie here, the festering wound, and break this Inquisition apart.

“You have completed the preparations to my specifications, yes?”

“Ah, Harcourt. Yes. Ahm…you’re quite sure this is…correct?” The hesitance in the other mage’s voice does him credit, but he is a fool, as they are all fools. Linnea has manipulated their desires easily, encouraging their dissent with Fiona’s methods, and their desire for the trappings of the Circle. She conceals a smirk.

“Of course, Hanley. I have assisted with these proceedings before—everything is as it should be. And I have taken care of the most important part myself.” The demon, she means. Lured by blood and promises of a warm, living body to the Fade on the other side of the Veil. It had been more difficult than she expected to find what she needed in proximity to this place, but in the end she had succeeded. Oh yes. She has made the preparations necessary.

They had balked at the blood, but she had prevailed in that as well.  _Do you see a Harrowing Circle here, you fools? This is the best way to bind the Circle and the demon who comes. If you truly want to cast away the interference of Templars, you must make some adjustments. It is as simple as that._ Yes, she had prevailed. So sensible, so confident, commanding. She would earn the power the Magisters wielded, and be made whole in a place where magic *truly* reigned. No more begging for scraps at the tables of the Chantry or the Order or the squabbling monarchies of the South. No.

She takes two steps forward, ignoring the tug of attention from the slumped elf in the corner, obviously stirring to wakefulness. He will be dealt with soon enough—a casualty of the approaching disaster. Linnea takes the girl’s chin in her hand, turning her face and looking her over.

“Well, girl. You will face your Harrowing, and become a true mage. Are you ready?”

There is a satisfying flicker of fear in the girl’s eyes—not so defiant as she appears, then. Good. Her thin lips part. “Enchanter Fiona has not authorized this. There are to be no Harrowings until the Inquisition is victorious.” Her voice barely trembles, until: “We were *promised*!”

Linnea releases her chin, tapping her cheek with a touch more force than necessary. “Surely you do not want to be a child forever, girl. You must prove yourself!”

Another mage, Mason, steps forward, taking the girl’s hand, his expression curled in that supercilious sneer that had singled him out to Linnea as the perfect target for this gambit. He had been all too eager to resume the Harrowings, and the myriad practices of the Circle, his own visions of the exclusivity of the mages driving him right into Linnea’s web.

Soon, so soon…

“Enchanter Fiona has no place here, child.” Mason’s voice, cold and sneering. “Put not your trust in such a failure—a woman who could neither fulfill her purpose as a Grey Warden, nor as a leader of mages. There must be power to carve out our future—power you must seize. You will see, when you have faced your demons.”

The girl’s struggles renew as Mason pushes her inexorably toward the edges of the circle and its branching whorls. “No! Stop!”

Linnea watches with a growing smirk as Mason, ignorant and foolish, steps into the circle with the girl, pushing her hand into the shallow bowl of lyrium. These mages barely deserve the name, ignorant of all the potential of their magic, the promise of more--only the memories of their own scared initiations, no knowledge at all of the inner secrets of the Circles, so easy to instruct. He will be a snack for the demon who will come. Enough to whet its appetite.

Linnea steps back, once, twice, her staff at her side. The other mages stand at the edges of the Circle, unsuspecting. Blue light flares and catches in the girl’s palm, nearly white like the heart of a flame. She gives a startled cry, still unwilling, and then sags in Mason’s arms. He lowers her to the flagstone floor, draping her across the red whorls and curves of the Circle, and takes a step back.

There is another tug, more frantic now, at the back of Linnea’s mind, from the elf behind her, but she disregards it, suffused with anticipation. Soon—soon—soon—

The reaction is so much more immediate than it should be, even with the distortion of time within the Fade—she sees the other mages startling with unease, stepping back suddenly, as the girl’s body arches into a tight bow of agony and struggle. Linnea had brought the demon close, very close, dangerously close almost, in preparation for this—her only concession to impatience.

The girl’s mouth opens in a voiceless scream, and her eyes shoot open, whirling with a bilious Fade-touched gold-green. She flickers eerily—as if one moment she is a slim young woman with dark hair—and the next there is the super-impression of a heinous creature, bent obscenely, spiking clawed appendages in place of legs, spine bowed over like a scorpion, skittering muscular arms and hands clawed. The gathered mages exclaim, backing away again, grasping their staves and summoning flames and frost and flickering lightning to their hands—

It happens so fast, once the demon has anchored, aided by the blood of Linnea’s summoning.

The girl is gone—only the demon remains. It flashes into movement, skittering on long distended arms, its spiking appendages raised and stabbing rapidly as it careens toward Mason first, because he is nearest, foolishly lingering within the blood Circle. His barrier goes up belatedly, but the spiking claws tear through it, piercing the mage through the chest with a thick wet crunch of bone and cartilage and the spatter of blood out the other side. It yanks loose as flames and frost flare at its back, the mage falling to the floor in a spreading pool of blood that obscures the red lines of the Circle.

There’s a piercing hoarse shriek that vibrates almost beyond hearing as the eyeless thing’s toothsome mouth gapes open and it skitters back toward the attacking mages. The spiked limbs flash out again, stabbing, one missing, the other striking a glancing blow against a stronger barrier. Linnea stands steady, confident in her bindings, reveling in the destruction. She will allow it this largesse of blood and pain before she lures it to the Hall where it will draw the attention of the sleeping Inquisition and wreak greater havoc.

It is a bloodbath. The careful, curving lines of the Circle are doused in gore, as the mages fall before the demon—no burning Rage, nor even hulking, imposing Pride, this, no. Envy, endlessly hungry, endlessly seeking for *more*, striking deep and tearing asunder in its need to take and take and take…

Linnea feels a thrill when its attention turns to her, feels the tug of its tie to her blood, and exerts her will. “You are mine. I have summoned you. You are bound to me.” Her voice is steady, confident, her staff at ease, as the thing shifts from side to side before her, the precarious deadly balancing act of its distended limbs macabre and shocking.

It gives a creaking shriek, that mouth gaping, blood dripping from its spikes. There is a rhythm to its shriek that grates on Linnea’s nerves and she scowls. “You will obey me!”

It flickers for a moment, the girl’s face suddenly there, but empty of anything, except for a slash of a smile and an echoing, hoarse laugh. Lips twist, struggling around words: “Mage. You are—nothing. You…are…MINE.”

Linnea jerks back, her brows drawn together tightly in shock, her hand tightening on her staff and bringing it before her. “I have—“

The spikes flash, slinging upward and scything down, striking down and forward through her back, pinioning her with a wet, startled scream cut short. The demon drags her close with the limbs, once again in its own form, its mouth gaping open. Linnea’s feet scrabble for purchase on the stones, her muscles seizing with the shock of her wounds, pain searing along her nerves. Her eyes are white and wide, the pupils thinned to pinpricks, blood gurgling from her lips.

“Boun…d. You—“ A broken, tearing cough of blood, spattering. The demon’s face flickers again, the girl’s tongue strokes out to lick through Linnea’s blood on her face.

It’s the last thing Linnea sees, this side of the Veil.

* * *

 

Lysas feels the binding on him break as Linnea is torn asunder. His mind is just a scream of blind fear and panic and the need to get away away away—

A barrier flares around him, instinct taking over, Creation magic spiraling down his arms with nowhere to go. The blood that spatters his robe is not his own, the creeping pool of gore that is spread across the stones…

He staggers to his feet, sliding left along the wall, his eyes full of the primal fear of prey, staring at the demon that stalks toward him on grotesque clawed hands. Those hands resolve with another eerie, insubstantial flicker, into small feet, slim legs, a robed young girl. The apprentice. Her eyes still glow with Fade light, her mouth hangs open.

A hand reaches out toward Lysas, fingers twitching as if new to the sensation of movement in this body. The elf shrinks back against the wall, sliding to the left again. Flee flee flee!

“You…are…perfect. Strooooooongggg,” the hiss drops sibilantly from the apprentice’s twisted lips. “Whaaaat. Do youuuuuu hungerrrrr for?”

Lysas gasps, pants, fingers scrabbling against stone.  _Mythal, protect me. Please…_

“Youuuuu have. Been deniiiiiiiied. Elf. They will neverrrrrrrrr elevate youuuuuuu. Trussssssst--” The apprentice’s slim hands make grasping motions, still reaching. The Fade-glowing eyes watch him, studying, analyzing.

_Sweet Sylaise, Fierce Andruil, Gracious Mythal, Gods preserve me, it *thinks*._

Lysas is like to pass out with the breathlessness of his panting and his fear. He staggers against the wall, his barrier flickering. The apprentice’s face flickers in answer, and for a terrifying moment it is as if he is staring into a mirror—his own face stolen, his mouth twisted and gaping. A high, keening whine escapes his tight throat—

It covers the last, desperate cough of one of the mages on the other side of the circle. A spear of ice stabs into the demon’s shoulder, the vulnerability of its seeking transition more chance than calculation. The mage who lies broken and bleeding, his last breath expended in this, a final force of magic meant to buy Lysas an escape—

Lysas meets the old man’s light eyes, his silvered brows drawn together. His dark lips barely form a voiceless: “Run.”

The demon is shrieking in rage and pain, flickering back into its own form, its scything limbs flailing back to strike. Lysas runs.

There is a stairwell to his left, and he staggers into it desperately, nearly falling before catching himself and climbing, driven before the demon’s screech. His breath is tearing from his throat, his heart thundering with terror, and he reaches the landing at the top without realizing, caged in by doors to his left and right and a wall before him. The demon is scraping and scrabbling up behind him, he can hear it, it had barely paused to deal with the fallen mage.

He stumbles into the door to the right, shoving through it, screaming, the sound of it echoing another screech from the demon, and a sudden chorus of shouting and noise before him and behind him.

* * *

 

Cullen wakes all at once, reaching blindly for his sword, his chair screeching back against the stone floor. He jerks his head around, barking a short, “What is it?”

Scout Harding straightens, releasing his shoulder and taking a hasty step back. “Commander. We’re under attack. Demons maybe? It sounds like a damned rift, but the Inquis—“

Cullen staggers to his feet, his legs protesting the movement, cramped from sleeping in his chair—again, damnit, though this time he managed at least to remove his armor first, which now he could curse himself for. His mind races. “Corypheus?”

Harding shakes her head, hair trailing from her usual braided crown and into her eyes. She must not have been on patrol—her leathers are hastily fixed. “I don’t think so, ser. The bailey and gates are clear.”

Cullen nods sharply, turning to reach for his armor.

“Ser, Commander, I don’t think there’s time.” Harding is apologetic but there is a thread of fear and urgency running through her voice. “The screams—“

He nods again, cursing himself, anger burning off the last of his lethargy. He turns, and she has his shield and sword ready. She’s tensed like a bowstring and normally he might have smiled to see a dwarf laden with human-scale armor, but there is no humor here. He slides his forearm through the straps of his shield, takes the hilt of his sword. “Where?”

“The Hall, I think, Commander. I was coming from the tavern and heard—“ She bites off her words, her lips tight. “I came straight here.”

“You did right, Harding. The guards—“

“Commander, I’ve already sent the detail on your door to round up any Templars.”

His eyes widen slightly at her initiative, but he doesn’t pause as he sweeps out the door to Solas’ rotunda and the Great Hall, Harding at his heels. A piercing shriek rings through the Keep, the menace of it sending a scrape of raw terror down his spine. In the Hall, then, but—it is muffled by stone still.  _Below—or, Maker’s mercy, Mira--?_  His pulse hammers in his throat.

“Harding!”

“Ser!”  

He shoulders open the door to the rotunda, shooting her a dark glance. “Find Rylen. Tell him to expect a High demon. Tell him to bring the men in through the front, and be ready.”

Her freckled skin goes stark white with shock in the flickering light of the nearest torch, but she nods curtly and drops over the edge of the battlement without hesitation, disappearing into the night with the sort of roguish efficiency Mira would appreciate. Shouts and a clamor rise in the bailey below, the call and answer of guards and, he prays, Rylen and his Templars among them. If he is right—if there is a High demon— _Maker, guide me._

There’s another unholy screech as Cullen shoves through the darkened rotunda—Solas is absent, the lights unlit, but there’s a scramble of footsteps from the stairwell to the library and Dorian appears in the archway, looking rumpled but alert, his staff clutched in his fist and an uneasy spark of green chasing through the orb at the top. Cullen feels a flicker of gratitude for unanticipated mercies, where once he might have felt only loathing and distrust.

“Dorian.”

“Commander.” The mage hurries to his side, their paths converging smoothly as the cross the rotunda from different angles toward the passage to the Great Hall. “Do we know--?”

Cullen grimaces. Lack of solid information at this moment is his greatest weakness. He has no idea what’s on the other side of that door or why it is *here* in the heart of Skyhold. Surely a rift could not tear through the Veil here? “No. A demon, if I have to hazard a guess. Our Templars should be on their way.” He shoots Dorian a quick glance over his shoulder, palm braced on the heavy oaken door to the Hall. “Are you with me?”

The mage’s eyes flicker silver in the dimness and the crackle of his magic, but Dorian’s mouth twists as he looks him over. "Commander, your armor--"

Cullen’s lips quirk into a startlingly brief smirk. "I hope your barriers are stronger than your chess game, mage."

With that, Cullen shoves through the door to the Hall. Shimmering light settles over him, accompanied by a muffled but heartfelt, “ _Kaffas_ ,” as Dorian follows in his wake.

* * *

 

The Great Hall is mostly empty—a handful of guardsmen are clustered at the great doors, weapons ready but looking uncertain where to direct their force. Cullen scans the Hall, still lit with torches in evenly-spaced sconces. There is no visible enemy, but another scream, more garbled, echoes, and a muffled explosion, somewhere below their feet, and he advances in fifth guard, his shield raised and ready before him, elbow raised and sword extended straight, one finger aligned over the cross-guard.

The throne is ahead of him, empty, the torches farther spaced down the length of the Hall. To his immediate left is the door to the courtyard, shut and silent. Ahead, to his left and right are towering scaffolds, dangling guide ropes and canvas fluttering slightly in the breeze trickling in from the great doors at his back. As he passes the scaffolding, Dorian’s steps soft behind him, he can see the door to Mira’s quarters at the far end of the throne room is shut—but so are all the other doors.

The Undercroft is also at the far end of the Hall, and he considers the possibility that something has gone awry with one of Dagna’s experiments. But surely even she wouldn’t be trifling with—

Something thumps into the door on the left—the door to Josephine’s office, and the War Room, and—the cellar?

The door bursts open as Cullen runs forward, sword moving into forth guard, and a slim young elf in a mage’s robe staggers into the Hall, shimmering with a flickering and fading barrier, spattered head to toe with gore, and crying out in abject terror.

“Boy, what—“

Another one of those piercing screeches rings out—nearly deafening now with proximity. There’s a scrape of something on stones, scrabbling, and the crack of dislodged masonry and a puff of dust and debris as something large and spindly and terrifying shoves through the doorway and into the Hall. Cullen takes two quick steps backward, hearing a sharp bitten-off “Fuck” from Dorian.

The horror that stretches up above them is nothing but a knobby, knotted torso ending in a bulbous head and spindly limbs. An Envy demon. Here, in the heart of Skyhold. A shard of fear stabs deep into Cullen’s heart, though he gives no outward sign—the last time he saw an Envy demon was…

Kinloch. Bodies torn asunder. Bodies maimed and turned into abominations, and—

There is not time for those thoughts here. He has a duty. The demon unhinges its slash of a jaw and screeches, teeth running all around its mouth, and those spindly hands flex their long pointed claws and wrench back for an attack as it lurches toward the gasping mage, who has collapsed against the nearest scaffold.

There is a shout of “Commander!” from back towards the doors of the Hall. Cullen moves to intercept the demon with a shout of: “TEMPLARS! TO ME!”

A renewed barrier flashes over him as he lifts his shield in a high guard and skids to a halt before the cowering mage. When the clawed hand careens off his shield, his sword is there beneath it, striking upward and outward to maim. There’s a green spark of Fade energy and gore spatters as his blade rips along the spindly arm, but the demon is unfazed. It rears back again to strike, and he shouts over his shoulder for Dorian to get the damned mage out of the way as he twists and goes in low under the towering demon’s flailing limbs, shield-bashing it back and scoring a long wound along its knobby torso.

Flames roar at his back and he whirls away, footwork precise and measured, nearly two decades of training and regimen etched in every line of his body. His Templars are forming up around him. They are fully armored, thank the Maker--in their Order-issued gear because Cullen and the Inquisition have taken nearly everything of any meaning from them, and he could not deny them this lingering identity. They are mostly newer recruits, younger Templars who had been uncertain of the shifting tides of Chantry and Order, and a few men who had come with Rylen, but Cullen hopes it will be enough.

“Flank it! Shields up! Strike!”

Cullen shouts orders as he strafes to his right again, keeping eyes on the demon. Dorian waits until the Templars have fanned out, then strikes his staff blade against the floor and sends a wave of panic careening into the demon to disorient it.

“PURGE!” Cullen barks, taking advantage, feeling a peculiar emptiness—no righteous Templar might from him. The lyrium lingering in his veins is faint and hard to hear over the sound of battle.

He feels the force leave the Templars, but only a few of them strike the demon—he swears. He had hoped they were more experienced, but their purges are largely ineffective. The demon quakes for a moment more in the throes of Dorian’s panic, then shakes off the disorientation and rears back again, staggering forward fast—straight toward one of the younger Templars. Its smaller clawed arms shoot forward, the longer arms scything down, pulling the armored Templar into its grasp with a piercing screech of claws on metal.

Cullen shouts wordlessly and careens forward to intercept, but the demon already has the Templar in its grasp and is dragging its limbs apart, rending metal with an ear-splitting screech. The Templar screams as Cullen bashes at the demon’s torso and slashes fiercely, twists, follows through with the momentum of his sword to hack at one of the over-extended spindly limbs. His blade bites deep and he has to wrench and twist it away as he stalks back, feet carefully stepping backward.

He is covered in blood, and the Templar is—Cullen’s gorge rises and he chokes it down. An aggrieved hymn echoes in the back of his mind:  _Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just_ …

Dorian’s necromantic energy sizzles and pops past him as he circles again, back in a guard position, sword angled back over his right shoulder for an overhand strike. Cullen has been subconsciously trying to herd the demon back towards the doors of the Great Hall and away from the Inquisitor’s throne—and the door to her quarters. He sidesteps steadily, mind blankly ignoring the debris of sheered metal and blood beneath his feet, barks out another order to the Templars, wondering where in the Maker’s name Rylen is—Rylen with his years of experience and lyrium-fueled strength. Rylen will fulfill the duty Cullen cannot, whose purge has been battle-tested and will bite deep into the Fade-touched flesh of a demon, who can coordinate with Cullen to force it into a transition. They need bait—and Cullen is weak, just a man with a sword and a shield, not a tempting form for a monster made for yearning for moremoremore…

He gathers himself to push forward with another shield bash but there is a fleet rush of air at his left side and Dorian darts past him, face fierce, and slaps a strangely graceful brown hand against the grotesque torso of the demon, violet energy flickering and flaring outward, and curling around the pale bloated flesh. The mage darts back out again, a hand thrown out with another barrier that settles over Cullen and the closest Templars. The wisp of energy continues to curl and writhe around the demon, climbing its form, winding around and there’s a faint sibilant whisper just under range of hearing.

The demon shrieks and flails its spindly arms outward, striking a nearby scaffold and sending boards clattering from a height around them. The Templars raise their shields to deflect, stand firm—

There’s a shout and more hurried footsteps, the sleek shick of a sword from a sheath. “Commander!”

 _Rylen. Maker’s mercy, thank you_. Cullen strafes again, clashing his sword against his shield to taunt the demon’s attention to him, and as his Knight-Captain lowers his guard into a bash, shouts: “Purge!”

The Templars shout—like soldiers of the Maker Himself, only His Word falling from their lips. Rylen’s face is fixed in a snarl as he slams into the demon, the force of his purge pushing the creature back a staggering step. There is a flicker—a transition?

The demon screams, and this time it echoes beyond hearing, as if it’s tearing through the air, its gaping toothy mouth wide open in agony and rage, and its limbs stab down toward the ground. The Templars scatter, Cullen taking quick steps back, shield up—

The impact of the claws in the stones sends out a shockwave and Fade-green circles roil up from between the cracks in the stones. Maker’s mercy—a rift—

Cullen uses his swordpoint to push himself back to his feet. A slight form skids between him and the demon, a flash of ginger curls and a round face and grey-green leathers. Harding, darting low to the ground with her daggers in her hands, weaving a zigzagging line around the threateningly bubbling circles toward the Inquisitor’s throne—and chambers. Cullen raises his shield again in reflex as the demon swings its arms again in attack, less accurate and focused after the purge, but still deadly. Dorian’s fire sheets up in a wall straight for the demon, and Cullen speeds along beside it, shield and sword raised, when a green circle erupts on his left and sends him staggering sideways—right into the downward clawing path of the demon.

The claws sink through his padded leather like it’s nothing.

There’s no rending screech of steel, no scrape and creak of armor joints screaming under pressure. Just the wet, thick sound of pierced flesh.

For a stunned moment of arrested movement, Cullen doesn’t feel pain, doesn’t comprehend why he is no longer on his feet. There is a hoarse shout behind him that he barely recognizes as Dorian.

Cullen’s sword falls from his fingers as the demon lifts him up, skewered neatly on long, spindle fingers. His shield arm hangs loosely—he tries to raise it, but the muscles rebel, pulling oddly as though something is—between them.

The pain tears through him on a delay, burning through his nerves like lyrium in his veins, but fiercer, stronger, more terrifying than he has felt in many years. There are shouts all around, but they are tinny in his ears, muffled oddly. He tries to draw a deep breath to shouts for his Templars—but his breath catches thickly and he coughs.

The eyeless face of the demon looms toward him, mouth gaping open. A voice in his head, rifling through the deepest aching denied needs of his heart.  _You are nothing less than nothing you are weak look how easily I have caught you little nothing they should have left you in that Circle you have never amounted to anything and now you are less than that not a Templar not a man but oooooooh this this is sweet this is good this tastes—like—moremoremore_ — _TREVELYAN!_

A scream tears through the Great Hall—but it does not come from the pinioned Commander, or the demon, or even the gathered forces. Just one word: “ _NO!_ ”

The Inquisitor stands frozen before her throne, crackling green fire climbing up her arm from the Mark in her hand, and her eyes are blazing golden like the Maker’s fire at the heart of the world. But her face—her beloved face—it is a deathmask of blank agony.

Cullen’s mouth opens, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his lips, one of his hands reaching up to anchor around the blood-slick claws in his chest. “Mi—ra.”

* * *

 

/  _Mira_  /

/  _Tawny_  /

She is deep asleep, buried under the covers, already forgetting her dreams—but this voice persists.

/  _Wake up hurry wake up_  /

“M’elyse g’way, sleep’n.” The mumble is half-voiced, recalcitrant like a child. She turns her head deeper into the pillows.

/  _YOU MUST WAKE_  /

This time the voice tears through her mind and her heart, accompanied by a surge of pain in her left hand. Mira startles upright with a ragged gasp, eyes open wide and straining. Her heart hammers, and her hand flickers as she raises it before her face. Pain pulses with her heartbeat.

It only takes her a heartbeat—two—to scramble from the bed, her bare feet falling to the carpet and carrying her forward, pure instinct guiding her to the bow and quiver leaning against the rail beside the settee. Her muscles are already tightening, and she bends the bow and strings it in one smooth motion, her breath coming quick.

The adrenaline from her abrupt awakening is still pumping, and she cocks her head, listening, trying hear through the ocean-rush of blood in her ears, to understand what has set her Mark off and made her heart pound. The great glass Orlesian doors are shut tight against the night, but there is a faint sound—

A shriek of rage, eldritch like the demons of the Fade. Her heart catches in her throat, and she takes the stairs down from her chamber two at a time, the Mark flaring and crackling with renewed vigor in the echoing tower outside her chamber door and a sudden buzz itching her teeth and the insides of her ears.

Her tower might as well be a prison, as far as she is from the rest of her Keep. Her loose sleeping tunic flutters around her thighs and she snugs her bow tighter over her shoulder, looking up with a startled gasp as the door before her slams open. Her hands reverse their motion, freeing the bow—

Lace Harding is on the stairs before her, fierce and with her daggers drawn. “Inquisitor! Demon! In the Hall—“

Mira leaps down the last of the stairs without a thought, bare feet thudding on the planks, and barrels past Harding, her breath harsh. A fucking rift HERE?

She has an arrow notched as she comes through the door into the throne room. She feels the stone rough and harsh on the soles of her feet as she skids sideways, eyes already scanning the Hall ahead as she draws fletching to her ear and prepares to loose.

There are Fade circles bubbling across the stones of the Hall. Dorian is there—his staff held aloft but a spell only gathered, not released—why is he hesitating? A demon is towering over them: thin, deadly, with long limbs topped with spidery claws. Claws, which are caught, piercing through a soldier, dragging him closer, the knobby head bending close—

Mira’s heart stops cold in her chest—one beat—two.

That—is—not—

Cullen, in nothing but his leathers, no armor or armament, no surcoat, his hair slick with sweat and blood.

This—is—not—

The scream that tears from her throat echoes through the Hall—one word only, a denial ripping from the very heart of her: “ _NO!_ ”

She looses her arrow into the space between heartbeats, the green fire of the Mark seeming to linger along the shaft, arcing through the air for the gaping maw of the demon—where it seems to burrow in deep through a coarse shriek. She thrusts her bow away, finds Harding’s hands there, warm and callused, firm, pressing the hilt of a dagger into her reaching hand.

She is already moving, bare feet skirting the boiling Fade littering the floor, the blood of a fallen Templar—but not her Templar, not her Templar—not Cullen—not yet—not yet—

_TREVELYAN_

The voice booms in her head, echoes, whispers, creeps along her spine. The demon turns on its many-jointed hand-feet, its piercing claws beginning to slide free of the man dangling like a cut-string marionette between them.

_YOU I WILL TAKE YOU WILL BE EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING_

The booming, sibilant voice continues as the man falls to the stones, cast aside like refuse—a sob tears from her throat, but the agony scraping through her heart is divorced from the murderous rage that drives her into a sinuous spin as a lesser demon springs up from one of the Fade circles and takes a swipe at her—her dagger slashes, severing its spine, and her other hand slaps against it with a burse of light from the Mark. She darts sideways, evading the shards stabbing up from an active circle, and twists away as another terror demon reaches for the trailing edge of her tunic. A fireball drives it back from her, but she is still moving relentlessly forward, her momentum the wind-sheering speed of the arrow, seeking the heart of her target.

The demon takes a step toward her, another, bending and contorting in a grotesque new shape, and begins to flicker—

Mira sees the flash of Fade-green, a young female face, harrowed cheeks, a long braid—before the demon flickers again and she gazes into—broad cheeks, soft lips, long eyes and a straight nose—

_I AM EVERYTHING I WILL MAKE YOU EVERYTHING I WILL TAKE THE WORLD WITH YOUR POWER TREVELYAN KINGS WILL BOW TO YOU EMPRESSES OLD GODS TREVELYAN—_

There are no words for the rage in her heart—she screams wordlessly, the sound tearing from her and wrenching her throat—fire crackles up her arm—she leaps across a Fade circle, all long-limbed unstrung grace and deadly intent, and slaps her Mark to the chest of the flickering demon—

A soft, thickened, rasping voice breathes a last command—“Purge!”

Dorian’s staff strikes the stones and a violet mark flares to life below the spitting green fire of her own Mark—

An arrow whistles close by her head, aimed with deadly accuracy, striking through the orbit of an eye that is shaped—just—like—hers—

A Templar shout rings out—echoing with the song of the lyrium below it—

Force rips down Mira’s arm, focused on the contact between her palm and the false form of the demon before her—it coils and tightens and suddenly explodes outward, sending a shockwave through the Hall. The demon staggers—a thin shriek tearing from a throat that now belongs to a young woman with dark brown hair and hollow cheeks and a sudden, terrible peace in her blank eyes. The Fade circles around Mira flicker and clap shut, with the sound of the Veil itself tearing and sealing.

Mira collapses to her knees heavily, the body before her making no sense in her mind—she is having a nightmare—she still dreams—she imagined Elyse’s voice, Harding’s warning—she has only dreamed that Cullen—that Cullen—

Her ears are ringing with the closing of the rift and the force of the Mark but under it she hears a sudden scrabbling of booted feet against stone, labored breathing thick with fluids—Dorian’s heartfelt cursing—

Her head lifts woodenly, her eyes shattered as they search—

Cullen is on his back on the stones, struggling against a pair of tanned hands—not Dorian, too light—and there are vambraces—Rylen, Cullen’s second in command—

Mira shudders, bile and fear suddenly rising up the back of her throat violently and she chokes it down, galvanized to her feet, staggering around the body of the girl before her. “Cullen—“

It is suddenly real when she says his name, and she stumbles again, and Dorian is there, holding her up, helping her to Cullen’s side. He is a wreck—pierced through and through with the talons of the demon, his leathers rent and torn and punctured and blood pooling. So much blood.

Panic seizes her, and she screams again, Andraste save her, she is mindless and screaming, but her words take form—“Solas!  _WHERE IS SOLAS_!”

A healer—they must have a healer, now, immediately—she hears Elyse’s steady voice in her memory:

_There are a lot of ways to die, Tawny. Sometimes the heart cannot bear the injury and stops, sometimes the lungs drown, sometimes the mind shuts off to protect the body and never returns…sometimes it’s the blood._

_Do you know how much blood a body holds?_

Mira groans and falls to her knees, her hands reaching out and pressing hard to the closest wounds. Blood is flowing freely, and she doesn’t remember how much blood is in a body, but it can’t be this much, it can’t, this is so much—

“ _Plait_ ,” she rasps, brokenly, her voice hoarse from her screams—broken like her heart will be, if this man breathes his last under her hands. “Maker,  _aidez moi, plait_.” She can’t look away from the blood welling between her long fingers.

“Inquisitor!” A voice--soft, diffident, vaguely familiar. “Inquisitor, please—“

“Mira!” Dorian’s voice is urgent, his hand on her shoulder squeezing. “A healer. He’s a healer.”

There’s a scratch of wood on stone beside her, and a young elf with frightened dreamer’s eyes sinks to his knees beside her, his hands already glowing with the soft green light of healing. Mira gasps a sudden breath, nearly choking on it, and shifts to the side, unable to stand, unable to remove herself from Cullen’s side, to give him room. A new prayer is beating in her heart, frantic as a bird. She carefully slides her hand up to brush Cullen’s hair back from his forehead, shudders deep through the core of herself at the blood she paints across his skin like a brand, and jerks her hands away. Guilt cuts through the heart of her, as though she has marked him, and she throws her head back with a keening cry that claws from her aching throat.

_Maker, hear my cry. Maker—_

Her mind is a scrabbling, frantic thing, careening from thought to thought, any anchor that fixed her in place gone in the wash of blood that spreads below the fallen man before her.

_I will not—I will not—I will NOT—_

RAGE. It is barely banked in her heart, under the panic, and she seizes on it desperately. This, this was what her father must have felt, when Giselle--

_If you take this man from me, I will wage war on the Fade itself._

/  _Tawny, don’t say that._  /

_Don’t tell me what to do in my own heart, Elyse._

Mira bows her head, her heart thumping, stumbling, tripping over the pulse of anger. This is good, this is strong, this will keep her from flying into pieces--

_Andraste, if you have any mercy in your heart for your Herald, you will stay His hand._

_I WILL NOT--_

_If you burn the heart from me, I will not carry your banner._

The thought is shocking, sudden—but she thinks she means it. She has born much—her mother, her brother, Elyse. Lives and loves ripped from her, over and over. The Mark, accursed and killing her, ripping a piece of her soul free each time she knits the Veil back together. She has taken up a mantle she does not believe in, waging a war she did not choose, against an enemy who finds her little more than an unfortunate accident of Fate—

_I WILL NOT_

She will not bear this.

She curls forward, leaning over her lover, nothing in her mind but rage and prayers and imprecations against the Infinite and the agonizing need in her heart for this man whose life is pouring out onto the stone floor. Her lips press to his forehead, her heart stilling for a beat at the chill of his skin—but the blood is still trickling from his wounds--he would not bleed if he were gone from her. The elf is focused with single-minded determination on knitting the damage before him.

He mutters something under his breath as Cullen coughs wrackingly, blood bubbling from his lips. Mira’s heart seizes again—how many beats can a heart miss before it stops? How much loss can one heart bear?

Why is Elyse on the other side of the Veil, and not here, at Mira’s side where she should be, her healer’s hands and dark sparking eyes making everything alright?

The elf mutters again, looking up, though the pulse and glow of his magic do not abate. “He needs a surgeon—the fluid in his chest—his lungs. He’ll drown in the fluid yet, even as I close the wounds.”

Sense and memory filter through the blank wall of panic and rage.

She turns her head, eyes searching—landing on Harding, still holding her bow, but nearer now, her sturdy body steady and waiting. “Harding—the surgeon. Camped in the bailey—“

“Your Worship.” The scout slips away, winding through the soldiers and others who are beginning to gather cautiously in the Hall as word of the demon’s defeat spreads and the entire Keep rouses.

Mira’s fingers card through Cullen’s hair unthinking, her unMarked hand stroking tenderly down to the side of his throat, two fingertips pressed to the powerful artery. His heartbeat is thready, but there. She keeps her fingers there, stroking in absent little circles.

With his heartbeat under her fingertips, it is like there is a partition of her self—one part of her counts the heartbeats  _ba-dum ba-dum -- -- badumbadum -- ba-dum_  and through the muffled sea-sound of blood rushing in her own ears there is cold stark terror  _no no no non non non tu ne seras pas je ne vais pas je ne vais pas_ —

And there is another part, floating above her, distant and detached, watching, considering. Her throat still aches from screaming, and she can taste blood and the foul Fade bitterness of demons. Dorian is no longer at her back. She takes stock of the Hall—dead girl, dead Templar— _not her Templar not her Templar_ , her heart tripping again—Fade burned stone—the damage to the archway leading to the War Room, and…

In the doorway, swaying uneasily, Josephine, her dark face ashen with horror. As the muffled, detached part of her watches, Leliana appears behind the ambassador, touches her shoulder gently, reassuringly, taking her by the shoulders and turning her back to her office. Leliana disappears for a moment or two, then reappears, her lips thinning grimly at the sight of Cullen. She comes to Mira’s side, her eyes coolly assessing the Inquisitor’s state of mind.

Mira doesn’t know what’s on her face, in her eyes. Leliana lowers her gaze, leans closer. Perhaps she does not appear to be as utterly mad as she feels, then.

“Inquisitor—there is something you should see, downstairs.”

Mira’s voice is flat. “ _J’ ne vais pas laisser_.” She doesn’t care if she’s the Void-damned Inquisitor. If her fingertips are not here, on his weak pulse, measuring each thready, hesitating heartbeat, he will be taken from her.

Leliana’s lips part to argue, but another voice approaches with the sound of armored footsteps at her other side. A slightly unhinged laugh escapes Mira—her Hands, Left and Right. The parts of herself are beginning to bleed back together, the muffling protection of shock wearing thin. Cassandra’s face is pinched with pain and shock at the sight of Cullen, but she looks to Mira intently. “Inquisitor. We must get control of this situation.”

A snort that hurts both her raw throat and her sinuses escapes Mira. “Do you think that’s possible?”

Cassandra shoots a look over her shoulder, to Leliana—it is good when the Left and Right communicate, but she could wish they did not try to do it over her head, now. “Leliana, I will not leave his side--but I need you to find out what has happened. That girl was a demon. How did it get here? Who is she? If it involves whatever you want me to see downstairs, so much the better.” Ah, that is the distant part, still watching above her head—thinking and analyzing while the rest of her floats in a bitter briney sea of terror.

She ignores the next look they exchange, her fingertips still stroking Cullen’s throat. Her eyes are fixed on the pallor of his skin beneath the blood. “I need a report on the state of the Keep’s security. Were we infiltrated? Are we still vulnerable? And—I want to know where the fuck Solas is and why he isn’t here.” That is a more human anger than the monstrous thing curling around her heart—he has become unreliable, and in her fear she feels it is a personal betrayal. If this elf hadn’t been here—like a Maker-given gift…

Her eyes lift, catch on a hurrying figure that approaches with a wooden cask in her arms. The surgeon. Mira watches, detached and fearing and raging parts of her gaining united focus for a moment as the woman converses quietly with the elf, mouth twisting at the magical glow that is all that keeps Cullen from slipping through her fingers like water, sea water, like the ocean off of Ostwick, her tongue tasting blood and salt on her lips as it flickers out— Ah, yes, the surgeon and her *scientific method*, Mira remembers now, detachment leaking through. This woman is the other extreme from little Dagna, who embraces the science and the magic and makes them whole.

She has to look away when the sleek little blade comes out, when the woman clinically slices away the leather and linen beneath to expose Cullen’s mangled chest and torso, her slim, deft fingers counting the ribs and then the blade sinking deep—

Her throat closes on the bile this time, and she squeezes her eyes shut, shame burning across her cheeks. She can take a life, kneel in blood, bind her own wounds, but how do you explain the soul-deep agony of watching the one you love bleed out before you under the blade? Cassandra makes a throat-clearing sound to mask her own discomfort, and reaches out a hesitant hand to squeeze the Inquisitor’s shoulder.

Mira chokes down the burn of sickness and tilts her head back, breathing heavily through her nose to calm the panic spiking through her chest. She seeks, yearning for the detachment again, but it has all bled back together, and only emptiness is there at her fingertips. After a moment, she looks up at Cassandra. “I need you to take command of the Keep.” Her eyes are intent on the Seeker’s.  _I cannot be the Inquisitor right now. You have to help me._

Cassandra’s mouth twists but she bows her head, in answer to the spoken and the silent pleas. “…Mira.”

When she has made her way once more from the Hall, Leliana shifts impatiently. Mira shuts her eyes again, feeling the struggle of the fear and the rage and the screaming emptiness hiding deep inside her waiting to escape.  _Ba-dum badumbadum -- -- -- ba-dum --_

“Leliana. Please get the Hall clear. And send me Dorian if you find him.”

“I don’t think that’s wise, Inquisitor. The chamber below—“

“I don’t think you understand how close I am to losing it.” Her voice is low, gravely, starkly empty of artifice. She sends a brittle yellow glance Leliana’s way. “Please. Send me Dorian, and Harding too.”

The heartbeat under her fingers skips…once….twice…and Mira makes a soft keening sound, crumbling forward, lips pressed to Cullen’s forehead, fingers massaging in circles against his throat as if she can reach his heart and keep it beating.

Her focus has shattered—she doesn’t know or care if Leliana follows her orders. 

The healer and the surgeon are talking urgently, and Cullen's body tightens against the force of magic, blood and fluid pouring from between his lips as he coughs and gasps. There aren’t even prayers now in Mira’s mind. She is blank, empty with panic.

Words fall from her lips, losing their meaning with repetition. Just a broken wave of sound, breathed against his furrowed brow: “ _Ne me quitte pas, ne me quitte pas_ …”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> aidez moi, plait -- help me, please
> 
> tu ne seras pas -- you will not
> 
> je ne vais pas -- I will not
> 
> J’ ne vais pas laisser -- I will not leave
> 
> Ne me quitte pas -- Don’t leave me (just as a reminder, but Mira says this a lot)
> 
> Hate me? Want to tell me how evil I am? Find me on twitter or tumblr @lustfulpasiphae


	2. Dawn Will Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn’t leave her, but it’s a near thing.
> 
> In the daylight hours following the failed Harrowing and demon attack, Mira struggles to assess the cost--in life, in damage to Skyhold, in damage to the reputation of the Inquisition. Consequences.

**Day One:**

He doesn’t leave her, but it’s a near thing.

His heart stops once. Dorian has to physically wrest Mira away from him as another mage—not Lysas the dreamer, but another of Fiona’s mages—hurries close with lightning crackling around her hands and ozone filling the air, touches his chest just left of center, massaging and sparking, until he arches like a bent bow, a ragged gasp for air tearing from his throat, accompanied by a broken sob from Mira. 

Then there is the distant, coldly professional voice of the mage, informing her shortly that she should leave, that they need to work and she is interfering with her grief and her cries, and it is like a slap in the face. It strikes her right down to the core, and she goes rigid, but soft-eyed Lysas is also looking at her with caution, and the surgeon’s apprentice is hesitant to approach out of fear of her–*her*, as if there wasn’t a demon below to wreak this havoc—

Dorian’s voice, striving for any tone but guilt and regret and falling flat— _there’s nothing we can do, we’re only in the way, he’s in the hands of your Maker now_ —

And that’s what terrifies her. The Maker takes and takes and takes, and Mira flatly refuses to give him his due—not at this cost.

She turns her head, eyes skipping blindly across the furnishings of her chambers. Harding is perched on the settee, cleaning her daggers, looking steady and unflappable, even with her curls still straying across her forehead and around her cheeks.

Mira takes one step, another, hesitates before the dwarf for a moment. “Harding.”

The woman meets her eyes evenly, just as she always has in the field. “Your Worship.”

“Will you—will you come for me if anything changes?” She is too fragile to form it as an order, to specify what “anything” should mean, but Harding gives her a nod.

“By your command.”

* * *

 

It’s Dorian who gets her out of the chamber—dressed now and decent—his attempt at a joke about the troops seeing her slay a demon in nothing but a tunic and a prayer falling flat in the silence of her mind. She follows him down the stairs, into the Great Hall—for a moment she balks at the door, knowing if she walks out into the open she’ll see the demon again, and Cullen hanging from its claws—but there is Leliana, as if she had been en route to retrieve her.

The first rays of dawn are spearing down through the high arching windows above the throne, not yet competing with the torchlight along the Hall—but warning that day is coming, and with it, consequence. Leliana steps close, voice lowered, and updates her without asking about Cullen.

“The abomination was an apprentice in Enchanter Fiona’s contingent. Her enchanter was able to identify her. I currently have guards making sure Enchanter Fiona makes herself available to our inquiries—she’s being kept in the library for now. Visiting nobles are beginning to rouse in their chambers, and my agents have already intercepted runners attempting to leave the Keep.”

Mira frowns, her mind starting to fix on this flood of information, finding purpose in the mystery of it. “An abomination? But why now? There haven’t been any problems from the mages since they joined us.”

Leliana shoots a glance at Dorian, knowing he has been in the chamber below the Hall already, and has seen what she has seen. Mira looks up at Leliana’s hesitation, her frown deepening when the Spymaster continues with a careful, “I’ve sent word to Val Royeaux for Enchanter Vivienne to return to Skyhold.”

Mira’s lips twist. “Just what I need. Madame de Fer’s scorn and disapproval. Why would you—“

Dorian interjects with equal care. “You’ll need her, Mira.”

Focusing on this is easier than being up above in her chambers, waiting for a heart to beat. She feels a spike of energy unrelated to the stifling fear that has saturated her heart for the last three hours. “Why?”

They begin herding her toward the damaged archway through which the demon had emerged. “I think it’s best if we show you.” This from Leliana, who despite earlier protests seems resigned to Dorian’s presence and involvement. Dorian looks unhappy but doesn’t protest, and Mira knows she won’t like whatever it is.

Mira smells the death before they get halfway down the stairs—cloying copper and tang of blood, darker filth of a grisly battlefield, the ozone and char and hoarfrost of magic. She stops on the stairs for a moment, nose flaring, throat spasming—puts a hand out to the wall, palm scraping against the rough stone. Leliana looks back at her with a moue of distaste and a question in her cool expression, and Mira compresses her lips and takes a shallow breath.  _Death is your life now. What is wrong with you?_

She continues down the stairs, shoulders squared, back straight, taking a shallow breath. She turns a hesitation at the bottom of the stairs into a swaying step forward over a bit of gore, determined not to show weakness again. She is beginning to realize that ahead of her is sprawling a situation she is ill-equipped to handle, which will tempt her to weakness again and again.

There’s no way this is a simple—part of her mind balks and laughs harshly at that, there’s nothing simple about any of this—abomination resulting from a mage with poor control. There is concentrated fury and violent death and…too many limbs…here.

The chamber is painted with gore. Robed bodies are rent asunder, torn, cast aside, in a ring of destruction around a central point where a blue glow beckons. Mira takes a few steps forward, before Dorian’s hand on her arm stops her.

“Careful. There’s blood magic here.”

She bites hard at the inside of her lip to center herself in on the pain. “What in the Maker-loving fuck am I looking at? These are mages—I think. That—girl—was possessed, an abomination.”

“Inquisitor—“

Mira whirls on Leliana. “This is the HEART of my CASTLE. What IS this?”

Dorian squeezes her arm cautiously, then pulls away, circling the room, the scholar in him taking over. “From what I can tell, it’s a Harrowing Circle—though a crude one, and rendered in blood. Here, you can see a bit of the binding.”

Mira stalks, careful of the congealing puddles of blood and bits of gore at first, then gives it up as a lost cause. There is too much—

_How much blood can one body hold?_

She squelches that thought firmly, shutting out things she can’t control. This she can do something about. This is her duty.

“A binding for what? And why in blood? For a *demon*?” But already her mind is working, burning through the fury, considering what she knows and what she can deduce from that knowledge. Elyse had never been one for blood magic, but she had had firm opinions on Harrowings and a number of other Circle practices, especially outside of Rivain.

Dorian’s lips twist. “Your Southern mages have this truly insane conception of the Harrowing as a do or die proposition. In Tevinter, apprentices train for their first encounter with a demon as for an exam. It is simply one more test of their control and magical ability. There are spectators. Experienced mages to prevent *accidents*. Here, they—“

Mira stops, toes pointed toward the terminus of a curling line of blood—this painted with deliberation, unlike the whorls and splashes elsewhere on the stones. She sinks down to her haunches, two fingertips pressing and dragging across the line, ignoring Dorian’s sound of protest.

“Dry. And dark. The air’s gotten into it. This was made well before all of these mages were killed.” She casts a glance back over her shoulder at Dorian. “How does it work, when they lure the demons in for the Harrowing? I thought the only blood magic the Circles still used were the phylacteries. Is it normal to summon demons like this, with blood?”

His expression flickers with something—surprise? “In Tevinter, it is usually a rage or sloth demon—a lightweight, as such things are measured. No problem at all for a trained apprentice with a strong will and the confidence to wield it. I have heard—and read accounts—that sometimes here in the South High demons—Pride and Fear—appear for more powerful mages—and sometimes not so powerful mages. Properly done, a demonic encounter should test the will of the apprentice on a level that is proportionate to their power.”

“And the blood?”

He frowns. “No. This is blood magic—demon summoning beyond the usual practices of any Circle I’ve ever heard of. I daresay there are basements in Minrathous where I should expect to see this, but here…” He holds out his hands, simultaneously indicating uncertainty and encompassing the carnage. “Mira, normally there is a Harrowing Circle, carved into the floor of a chamber used expressly for this purpose. It anchors the ritual and helps to contain any abominations—should such an unfortunate outcome result. But now—“

“Now the Circles are abandoned, and the mages are free,” Mira finishes. She rocks back on her heels, rubbing the back of her hand against the ache between her brows. Between the tears and screaming and rage and tension and fear, she hurts all over, and this nightmare is only begun. “So what do I have here then? Is it a Harrowing or a Blood Mage? Have we been infiltrated by Venatori? And if not, why was a Harrowing being performed? Fiona agreed to halt all dangerous Circle practices until further discussion.”

Mira pushes back to her feet, inspecting the bodies with more attention. Most are not even bodies, but bits, and scattered to the edges of the circle, or thrown outside it, or fallen just within its borders. One robed figure is collapsed forward, however, an arm outstretched toward the stairwell they had entered from. Mira pauses at its side, using the toe of her boot to turn it over. The man is pierced through—her mind shies a bit from the wound, focusing instead on his face—a face she vaguely recognizes.

“This man. He was in Redcliffe Village. I spoke to him, about Fiona, about the Circles, before I found you. Have you brought Fiona down here to identify the bodies yet?” She glances over to find Leliana standing at ease, arms crossed over her chest, watching her with a thoughtful, assessing expression.

“I have not, Inquisitor. I did not think it prudent, until my investigation has been completed.”

Mira makes a soft sound of assent, if not agreement, and resumes her prowling, working a wider circle, peering at faces when she can find them, and avoiding the blue glowing bowl at the center of the circle. “I don’t recognize anyone else, but I don’t know if that’s because they’re not Fiona’s mages or because I haven’t spent enough time among them.” There is a hint of self-censure in her tone. Blood mages, demons, misguided mages or whatever it may be, this is her fault. This is her Keep, her Inquisition, her alliance, and she should know what is happening under her own roof.

“Is that lyrium, Dorian?”

“Yes. It—ah—enables a quick and unavoidable interaction with the Fade.”

“It doesn’t look like the stuff in the phials.”

“It’s not the same. If I began to count off the different preparations and processing methods for lyrium we might be here all day.” His voice is wry, and when she glances back at him, she is almost able to summon a quirk of the lips in answer.

“I wish one of these bastards was still alive. I don’t want to have to let you loose on the entirety of the mages just to learn what happened here.” She shoots a quick glance at Leliana, who tips her head in acknowledgement.

“But the elf—the healer.” Dorian looks up at her suddenly, features keen. “He was being chased by the demon. He must have been down here.”

Leliana makes a sound of dismay. “The mage who is *healing* the Commander? Who is unattended in your quarters? He could be a blood mage for all that we know!” She whirls, starting for the stairs, but Mira halts her with a short command.

“No one goes up there without me. And he’s not a blood mage.” Mira’s eyes are yellow and hard with all the pain and the death around her, her mouth firm. “No one is to disturb them until Cullen is safe.”

Leliana gives her an incredulous look. “He is not safe with a blood mage. You can’t possibly know—“

“But I do.” She remembers the boy, gentle and bemused in the village, and after—pure, untainted in heart despite the red mist of lyrium clouding his eyes, singing the Chant to a Maker who would not rescue him. She still does not entirely understand the Fade-and-time-bending magic that Alexius employed to send her there, but she suspects that the dark future acted as a crucible, distilling the worst case scenario of her choices and failures. Lysas—his name she remembers, forged in her memory of that place—was pure and unbent by his suffering. That soul would never succumb to demons and blood magic. “He is no blood mage, nor ever could be.”

Leliana’s brow is furrowed hard. “This certainty is ludicrous–how can you—“

“The same way I know you would die for me though you have never fought at my side!” Mira’s face sharpens with intent, her Marked hand clenching at her side. “The same way I know Cassandra would be your vanguard, the Right Hand falling before the Left,” she says, softer, expression easing a bit. “Do not ask me again, Leliana.”

She had never kept this knowledge from her Spymaster, and she sees the understanding light the other woman’s eyes. There is a flicker of something vulnerable in the memory before her expression smooths. Leliana nods, turns toward the back of the chamber, making her way toward the closed door of an archway. “Very well, Inquisitor. There were signs of a struggle, in the kitchens. Will you follow me?”

Mira nods shortly, shooting a quick glance at Dorian, and relaxes the slightest bit when he accompanies her.

* * *

 

She deals with Fiona first, though runners constantly interrupt, bringing reports from Cassandra and from Rylen, who is assisting her by keeping order at the camps below the escarpment. The gates of Skyhold are sealed, no one to enter or to exit except troops from below, and those only under orders or summons from the Seeker. Word spreads quickly that Commander Cullen had been injured by a demon—though the extent of his injuries goes unconfirmed by rumor, a situation that Leliana labors to maintain with disinformation.

The Enchanter is cool under questioning, though Mira thinks there are fault lines that linger in her confidence from Alexius’ control and influence. She knows the woman was a Grey Warden once, but the only other Warden Mira has known is Blackwall, who is grim and brash and stoic—she is never sure what to expect of Fiona.

Eventually she grows tired of the roundabout, spreading and bracing her fingertips on the table between them and leaning in, her eyes narrowed. “This is unacceptable! I have dead mages, a dead Templar—“ Maker help her, only one, only one—“enough blood to paint the gates red and summon a hundred demons here in the heart of MY CASTLE. You will explain how this has come to happen or so help me—“

The elf’s moonstone eyes go hard and flinty and her mouth is carved with deep lines. “Are all of your alliances to be so quickly cast aside at the first sign of difficulty, Inquisitor?”

Mira’s nostrils flare and she pushes herself violently upright, rocking back on her heels before settling with a wide stance and hands crossed over her chest. Her eyes are sulfurous and burning, clashing and holding the mage’s silverite glare.

/  _This is why you have a Spymaster, Tawny. You were never any good at this sort of thing._  /  

She pulls a grimace, brows still drawn. “No. No, they are not. But the position I have given you—“ She does not miss the flash of resentment in the woman’s eyes, nor does she misunderstand its meaning—“I have brought you and your mages into the heart of my forces, and I will not see blood spilled here without knowing the cause and addressing it.”

The mage does not look away. There is a grievance here, and Mira knows that she has ignored it in the heat of what will always seem to be more immediate, more pressing concerns. She is one woman, with one Void-cursed hand, and she is the only one who can seal the rifts, but she let them place the sword of the Inquisition into both of her hands—this too she must do. Fiona’s chin tilts up the slightest bit.

“Are we to become conscripts, then? I confess, most of my people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.”

Ah. Well, and there it is, isn’t it? Out of the corner of her eye she sees Leliana’s hand hovering over the hilt of her dagger—Maker, if anyone is more handsy with a blade in a tight spot than herself, it’s her Spymaster—

Mira tries not to think of her lover, her heart, under the hands of healers on the other side of the stronghold— _Harding will come, you know she will_. She can fix this, if only she can see clear through to the other side. It’s like loosing an arrow—first, to call the target, and then—well, here is the target. Let it fly.

Mira tilts her head to the side, feels the lines around her eyes relax a bit as she centers herself. “No, Enchanter. I have no fondness for conscription. There are many compulsions that may drive a person to fight—I would prefer they not come to my banner by the iron fist. You have your alliance, and I have had—and hope to continue to have—your aid. You are a strong leader—“ Maker, let her be right. “And as two leaders, allies, I hope we can come to the heart of this matter together.”

Her advisors are wearing off on her, or she is regaining an ease with the lessons of her youth. She thinks even Josephine might not have been displeased with such a speech.

And now, for the final shot…

Those fault lines are still visible, but Mira does not want to exploit them—it is not her nature. She wants to fix things, not to tear them apart. It is the only thing that keeps her from losing herself in this mad world she has been thrust into.

Her voice is even when she speaks again, her expression still and watchful, and she extends a hand to the Enchanter. “This alliance is not a unilateral agreement, Grand Enchanter.” She uses the title deliberately, evoking the hierarchy of the Circles. “If enemies strike at the heart of your power, they strike at mine as well.”  _I do not believe you would break your word and Harrow your mages after all you have done to try to protect them—I do not believe you would treat with blood mages or blood magic again after Alexius. Stop being stubborn and let us help each other, damn you._  She doesn’t say any of it aloud, but she sees the way Fiona’s eyes trade a little of their harsh light for sense. “Can we not work together to strike back at them?”

Fiona’s face is cool and composed again, her eyes speculative. Her words, when she speaks, are candid. “Talk is cheap, Inquisitor. We have needs that have not been met.” She raises a hand and cuts a sharp look at Leliana when the Spymaster steps forward. “I do not speak of fripperies and *creature comforts*,” she continues with emphasis. “We need room to train our apprentices, support from your troops in *safely* locating and bringing in young mages and scared apostates both, provisions—“

Mira’s brows go crooked, and she lets her hand fall. “My armies subsist on bannocks and beans like the rest of us, Grand Enchanter.” Still that title, still making a point.

“And they will not be the ones to suffer rickets because they are not a priority of your provisioner!” Fiona’s eyes are hot again, sparking and challenging.

Mira jerks back as though slapped. She blinks a few times, rapidly, and clears her throat softly against discomfort. The thought occurs to her—not for the first time—that she needs her own agents. She feels a burn of shame across her chest, warming the pendant around her neck, and wants to look away but allows the Enchanter to see the sincerity in her eyes. “I did not know it was so bad—I am sorry. I will investigate this oversight.”

Perhaps something can be salvaged of this after all, if they are honest with one another. Fiona’s eyes soften the slightest bit, and the lines around her mouth. “It was not as bad, before. Things have…worsened…since we arrived in Skyhold. I do not expect you to personally investigate every problem, Inquisitor, but—we have children among us. I cannot allow them to suffer for my choices.”

Choice and consequence. Maker, will they never be free of it?

/  _Free of life, Tawny? You do not truly wish that._  /

Mira’s jaw firms, and she tilts her head, eyes intent. “And I will not allow you and yours to suffer for *my* choices. Will you work with me?” Her hand extends again, sure this time.

This time, Fiona takes it—an agreement between leaders, rather than a choice at the point of a blade. Not that Mira thinks—much—that the King of Ferelden would have put the mages to the sword, but exile would have been as sure a death sentence in the current climate.

/  _Better._  /

* * *

 

Harding is coming up the stairs from the rotunda when Mira finally feels comfortable leaving Leliana with Fiona to construct a final report of the power struggles and discontent she has been combating within the mage ranks. They will try to identify and then dispose of the mage bodies in the chamber below, afterwards. Mira had looked askance of Fiona, knowing how gruesome it was, and received a stoic glance and a cool “I was a Grey Warden, you remember” for her trouble. She leaves feeling a little foolish, and overwhelmed. A list of details to see to and things to investigate is building in her mind—echoing hollowly between the memory of faltering heartbeats—and Mira thinks for a moment that she understands why a writing tablet is a nearly permanent fixture of Josephine’s impeccable outfit.

The sight of Harding’s face sends all of that tumbling away though. Dorian is still at her back. She hasn’t dared to ask him why he is still with her, and he has been serious and silent for the most part in a way that is wholly unlike him. She is afraid if she draws attention to her need, he will make a remark to hide whatever has kept him near and disappear, and she’s not entirely sure she can get through the rest of the day alone.

But Harding. Is before her. Freckled face serious, but not—

“Your Worship. The healers have done all they can for the day. He is unconscious, but breathing easier, and they say his heart is steady.”

Mira sways and locks her knees, a hand shooting out to grasp Harding’s sturdy shoulder and squeeze. She almost chokes on her next breath, and Dorian’s hand is at the small of her back, steadying her. Harding lifts a warm, callused hand and puts it over Mira’s on her shoulder, and her green eyes trade a bit of their professional wryness for warmth. They wait out her weakness, patient. The relief coursing through her is almost crippling.

She finds herself counting her own heartbeats, breathing between them. Two moments, three, four…

Her feet move without her thinking, and she leaves them behind, her heart thumping, beating, pounding, drawing a line between one moment and the next, leading her down the length of the Great Hall, around the purposeful soldiers and agents and crews, through her door and along the hall, up the tower stairs—

She hesitates again at the top of her own stairs, a breath tearing from her throat, her heart tripping. The scent of blood and ozone and herbs is thick in the air, and the Orlesian doors are shut tight against chill, the fire high and crackling with fresh wood. Her hand grips the rondel at the top of the bannister—bone and tendon starkly defined, a faint silvery scar. She feels a bit outside herself again, and struggles to find her center. She is so afraid to look at the bed, and its burden—heart still beating, lungs still breathing, Andraste wept…

Her frightened indecision is broken by a soft sound and a rustle. She turns her head with a snap, and finds the elven mage, Lysas, sitting up in the settee, his face hollowed. Magic drain. She remembers what it looks like—their mage Fools were cautious, but Elyse had done it once or twice, carelessly—

/  _For you, idiot._  /

He makes to stand, a weary apology tripping from his lips, and Mira steps forward, raising a hand to forestall him. “Don’t. Please. Rest, Lysas. You have—“

_You have given me back my heart._

“You have done so much for me today, and I don’t think it has been an easy time for you. Please rest.” She takes a step toward the bed, and stops. Her heart can’t stop tripping over itself.

Lysas watches her, feeling very certain that he is intruding on a moment that should be private.

“Inquisitor. He is as safe as we can make him now. We will give him more healing in a few hours, but the body can only take so much at once. He may not wake for a few days,” he adds, as she takes another hesitant step toward the bed.

She barely hears him. Her eyes are yellow like sulfur, burning, her face carven with strong emotion. Her steps take her inexorably to the side of the bed, to the still figure swathed in bandages and poultices, his face pale and drained of color from blood loss.

Mira makes a small, broken sound, reaches out to take his limp hand in hers, and collapses in a heap at the bedside. The fear and pain and uncertainty that has been hiding behind control and rage for hours shatters through her like brittle mirror glass, like delicate glass figures swept to the floor, breaking her down and sending her spiraling into darkness. She sobs until she is empty.

* * *

 

Lysas bows his head, looks at the writing tablet on the settee beside him. The soldier, Harding, had left it, with the suggestion—had it been an order? He wasn’t sure—that he write an account of his experience. A report, he supposed. 

He pulls into himself, into a silence deep inside, until he can no longer hear the Inquisitor’s heart breaking with equal measures pain and relief, and begins to write.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're going to be on this wild ride for awhile. It's going a bit slower because I just started a new job and I have a few alternate timelines also going, but I promise there's more.
> 
> Find me on twitter or tumblr @lustfulpasiphae


	3. A Song in the Stillness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen woke to the song of the Maker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This occurs on Day 3 of Dark Heart of Envy and so it’s two days after Chapter 2 (Day One: Dawn Will Come). The romance arc following Dark Heart is kind of called Without Hurt or Harm or Speech in my mind, after a Neruda poem. Title of this chapter is from Trials 1:3. Quotes throughout are from scattered bits of the Chant.

Cullen woke to the song of the Maker.

He felt strong, whole, complete, filled with purpose and power. His limbs flexed and he tested his mobility in the way of a wounded soldier coming awake when he had not expected to see the living side of the Veil again. Toes, fingers curling, arms tensing, knees bending slightly. He was whole. He breathed deep, and could barely feel the tension of still-healing tissue in his chest.

At last, he opened his eyes.

And knew despair.

He threw back the covers, feeling a twinge across his chest from the pull of muscle—but it was faint, barely there beneath the glorious song filling his head and his heart. If the Host of the Maker Himself had stood at the foot of the bed and raised their voice in praise of the Maker’s works, it might not have sounded as sweet. He dropped his head into his hands, fingers threading forcefully back through his hair, tugging roughly, the pain barely prickling his scalp. Every other sensation was lesser, beneath the song.

He threw his head back, staring up into the rafters blindly, trying to recall the last moments before blackness had claimed him. It was difficult. There was the demon—that was easy to recall, the Templar training whispering through the song **_abominations_** with a hiss of purpose. The heft of his blade, his shield, the death of his Templar, the battle—beset by mages and demons on all sides—

He held still, tilting his head, frowning faintly. No. That wasn’t right. The heat of flames, the green coiling of necromancy—that was neither maleficar nor abomination. Dorian. Dorian, who was an ally, who had fought at his back—

_Maleficar—magister—blood mage—abomination—strike with the Maker’s Will, Templar!_

Cullen tightened his fingers against the edge of the mattress, shaking his head, slow and mulish. This was not right. This blazing song was a lie, and he must remember that. He would—not—submit!

The song blazed, a chorus bright and brilliant in his soul—

_Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him._

_Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift_

_And turned it against His children!_

He gritted his teeth, the joint of his jaw pulsing, his eyes narrowed determinedly. He would not succumb to lyrium again.

Maker. Why was there even lyrium *in* his blood? What had he done that he couldn’t remember?

He reached cautiously, felt the song swell, felt the Purge there, vibrating deep in his chest, begging to be released in song. The memory flashed through like a lightning strike as he forced the impulse down—a young Templar rent apart by demon claws, and his own abilities silent, the ineffectual purges of the other Templars. He lashed out, his fist smashing down onto the bedside table, the impact unsettling a stack of books and knocking a vase to the floor with a crash of shattering glass.

His breath heaved from his lungs, and the strain on his healing chest centered him. The pain burned slowly through the song eating at his brain and his resolve. In its wake it left only the despair, and a helpless anger.

Nearly a year he had fought this battle, and now—this was his worst fear realized. All of that work, that suffering, that weakness and struggle for naught. Negated by an action he couldn’t remember. Had he taken it willingly? Had he choked the sickly sweet icy burn down with vigor? Had he succumbed?

He flexed his hand, ignoring his skinned knuckles, and looked around.

The Inquisitor’s chambers.

That sent a fresh wave of agony through him.

Mira.

What would she think? Would she forgive him?

Maker—

Fear struck deep through him and he staggered to his feet, taking a few steps forward, driven by panic despite the wavering of his limbs. He careened into the bannister at the head of the stairs, steadied himself with a tight grip as though he might fly apart.

Maker, was she alright?

He couldn’t remember.

His surcoat was on the settee. He grabbed it, wrapped it tight around his shoulders, felt slightly more secure with the fur on his shoulders and the drape of the wool covering the light tunic and loose trews. He went down the stairs, down through the tower levels, felt weakness and exhaustion buried under the driving song of the lyrium as he hesitated at the doorway to the long hall between this tower and the Great Hall.

His hand was steady when he pressed it to the door. He didn’t know whether to rejoice or weep.

The hall was not empty. He stilled a few steps into its echoing length, his bare feet silent on the stones. His heart ached and swelled and his love drowned out the lyrium song for a moment as he stared at the tall, lean form of Mira Trevelyan, her shoulders squared in full Inquisitor mode, her head tilted down and to the side with attention to Josephine. Relief that she was unharmed warred with shame at the lyrium strength that filled him. Maker, she had been so tolerant of his weakness, with his determination to fight this addiction, even though it made him less effective, even though it left him trembling some nights and unable to please her, even though…

He took a breath made ragged by the still-healing damage to his chest, and it echoed in the hall.

She looked up, her yellow eyes wide and filled with confusing emotion—joy, relief, guilt, a stricken tension thinning the skin over her cheekbones. Her lips writhed before pressing together.

If waking to the song of the Maker in his mind had filled him with despair, it was nothing to this—this heart-breaking certainty that froze his heart in his chest, left it an empty, cold, aching thing, like molten metal slaked to brittleness.

 **She knew**.

Of course she knew.

Inside he reeled, but his body stood firm, stance spread and braced, his hand twitching in deeply ingrained habit to rest on his missing sword pommel. He crossed his arms over his chest instead, feeling exposed without his armor, with Josephine there to bear witness.

The lyrium song soared in his heart, filling the aching silence left by the betrayal. “Inquisitor.”

She took a jerky step forward, her whole body awkward with tension, her eyes sliding away from his. “Cullen. Cullen, please—“

“What has happened?”

The Inquisitor flinched slightly—he saw it in the tightening at the corners of her eyes, the flare of her nostrils, the tautening of her shoulders. A part of him was appalled—he must not harm her, ever, she was his heart, she was the soul of the Inquisition, she must be protected—but a more immediate part of him was struggling against the renewed, nearly deafening, song of the lyrium.

Mira’s mouth opened, shut, her jaw clenched. Josephine filled the writhingly-uncomfortable silence, taking a step forward and angling herself, perhaps unconsciously, so that she stood slightly before the Inquisitor, shielding her.

“There has been an incident. I do not know how much you remember, Commander—but you were wounded when a demon was summoned in the cellar below the Great Hall and escaped. There—there was not much damage, but—“

“There were casualties!” he barked. Lives were more than “damage.” Soldiers weighed in the balance, souls lost and blood on his hands.

That flinch again, but this time she stepped forward, around Josephine, her eyes flickering to his. “Yes! There were casualties. A Templar—Joseph Markham, of Elmridge.” She knew it would be important for him to know the man’s name—or it would have been, before. “A number of mages—“

He made a sound, a scowl darkening his brow, and her eyes *flared* with temper in response. “Rebel mages—mages who opposed Grand Enchanter Fiona’s leadership—and an innocent girl, a victim. No more than 16. Her name—“

“They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones—“ His voice was rough from disuse, from the betrayal curling around the pain and hurt in his chest like rashvine.

“Cullen!” Her mouth was a hard line, her guilt squashed under her anger. “How can you—“ Her hands curled into fists. “Her *name* was Camille Pelletier. She was from Montsimmard. She was a *child*! A *child* and they led her to a demon like a sacrifice.” Her voice cracked with strain, and one of her hands rose, pressed hard to the center of her chest.

He’d seen her do it before, when she was feeling strong emotion—as if she could press the feelings back into her heart. His body swayed, conflicted, part of him yearning to go to her side, to hold her, to ease that hurt, and that part warred with the song echoing hollowly in his heart, convinced of the sin of knowledge that had graced her face. His body was a battlefield, and he realized how damnably complacent he had grown—complacent with his weakness, with the trembling, and the nightmares. It had been so long since he’d fought this powerful certitude, this overweening *conviction* that drowned out everything else when the lyrium was there, slithering like ice and obedience through his veins.

She had done this to him. _Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker’s will—the Maker’s will—_ “Blessed are the righteous—You mourn an abomination–“

Her chin tilted up, her eyes glittering oddly in the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows to their left. “And now I see the true cost—have I also lost your humanity to this tragedy?” Her voice was thick with emotion.

Josephine might have been a tapestry for all the notice they gave her. She wished desperately to be elsewhere, but there was a look in the Commander’s face that was hard and unyielding and cold in a way she had never seen before.

“You have done this to me!” He roared it, as though lion in truth, his eyes a bit wild. “You don’t KNOW. You could never understand the SONG—“

Mira stepped forward again, the ragged edge of his voice galvanizing her. Her hands were fisted again at her sides, as she struggled not to reach for him. She wanted to touch, to soothe, to beg forgiveness, to promise they would get through this. Why had she not been there, when he woke? Why had she let—Andraste fucking wept, she couldn’t do this. She’d tear herself in half going down that road. She had nearly done it the night before.

“Cullen.” She hated the weakness in her voice. It was ineffectual, as she was, in the face of his pain and his struggle with his addiction. “Please let me explain. Please let me help. I swear to you—“ She couldn’t help herself: her hand went out, rested on his arm over the thin linen of his tunic, trying to establish contact, to reach him through the lyrium.

He went rigid beneath her hand, his eyes wild and wounded, though his mouth was pressed in a thin line.

“Cullen, I swear—“

His brow was furrowed, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening, as they did sometimes when he had a headache. Maker, she wished knew what was in his head right now. How could she possibly help him when she didn’t know the first thing what was happening?

He swallowed convulsively, stepping back with a jerk, his arms crossing over his chest again—but this time he looked more like he was holding himself together and less like a stern Templar resisting the faithless and corrupt.

“I was trying to be better.” It was the barest, rasping, stifled thread of sound, but it cut the heart from her chest, carved it up, let it fall to the cold stones.

Mira’s mouth parted, gaping soundlessly at the stab of pain. The Envy demon might as well have ripped into her chest as well, the way those words, that broken voice, made her feel. She made a hard-breathed “huhn” of sound, like her heart and her breath both had fled her with the force of a shield-bash.

He bowed his head in defeat, agony writ through the line of his shoulders and the tension in his neck. “They who are judged and found wanting shall know forever the loss of the Maker’s love.” He said it flatly, his rich tenor tones deadened and empty—did the song steal the music in his soul? It certainly killed any joy in hers.

Mira made another sound of pain, her fist closed and grasping at empty air. He didn’t lift his head as he skirted her, fleeing with a quick but broken pace down the hallway, his surcoat clutched around him, a hand pushing back into his hair.

She nearly choked on the words, when they came: “Only Our Lady shall weep for them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a part I haven’t finished writing yet that occurs the day before this piece, one of the mage healers tending Cullen realizes that he’s lyrium-depleted and administers Templar lyrium to him while he’s unconscious, to aid his recuperation. There aren’t things like medical charts in Thedas–and even if there were, the Commander of the Inquisition’s lyrium withdrawal is a closely-guarded secret. You could say this is Mira’s fault for not thinking to tell the healers, but the days following the demon are pretty hectic and honestly, it doesn’t occur to her to tell the healers as a precaution. Cassandra might have thought of it, but the fact of the matter is, they have bigger problems and it never occurs to anyone that a healer might do this. Anyway, tl;dr Mira did not order Cullen be given lyrium but it happens, and there’s fallout. This arc isn’t near to done.


	4. Barn Raiser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude in the Hinterlands during Cullen's assignment and recuperation there following the demon attack in Skyhold.

There was a thwack as a battered wooden peg struck his boot, and he looked up sharply, grimacing as he steadied the precarious inkpot. The old trader was waiting, his reddened nose and bright eyes alert.

“Enough of this scribbling. Ain’t never seen a soldier who scribbled as much as you do, boy. Get a move on, now.”

Cullen rubbed at the back of his neck, hating the ache that was building in his shoulders and nape. “I have a great deal of wor–”

A missile flew through the air, striking him in the chest. Not a missle–a tool belt. Pegs and pulled nails with big squared shanks, a hammer… His hands came up, straightened the belt before nails could escape.

Mia was already stalking by, her stride long and purposeful. Her amber eyes glinted at him challengingly. “You remember how to raise a barn and hammer a nail, little brother? Or they make you forget how to be Fereldan, in the Order?”

Old Dan didn’t wait on his answer, just knocked him again with his peg and stumped off in Mia’s wake. “Girl’s right you know. Ain’t nothin better for it than some good ol’ sweat to set you right with the Maker.”

Cullen scowled a bit–but when he followed after them, he had traded his sword belt for the tool belt and loosened the laces at the neck of his tunic.

The barn had already been raised, of course. The framework was up, and those who labored did so in crews, hammering boards and squaring corners and lifting joists up to wiry young men burned nut brown by the sun, straddling the beams overhead.

The drying racks would come later. Cullen found his body relaxing into the labor, letting his mind wander in a way that didn’t rouse the song, or the pain that had plagued him in his sinuses. He thought about crops and logistics and supply–but also the long endgame.

They’d build drying racks once the walls were up–immense lath frames that could be hoisted into the rafters at the end of the growing season, layer upon layer, depending on how high the roofline went. There would be a steady supply of elfroot by the end of the season–from the Crossroads to the Pass, crops were already planted, elfroot and barley and embrium. The destitution and resignation of a backwater the Crown barely cared for except for the presence of Redcliffe to the north, turned to purpose and production for the Inquisitor who had liberated it. And when the war ended–when, because he refused to credit despair with doubt–they would have cash crops: elfroot and embrium to trade with the city folk who liked it in their pipes, barley for whisky and beer.

These were the thoughts that filled his head as his back bent and his arms bunched and he labored and sweated under the sun, side by side with soldiers and settlers–no longer refugees. The lyrium song was distant, not even a faint lyric hymn under the pleasurable burn of muscle strain and the pounding of the hammers and mallets and creaking of ropes.

And when the day wore on to dusk and the work wound down, he found it natural and easy to follow Mia to the bonfire, take a bowl loaded with hot stew and a hunk of fresh bread, a horn of ale, and sit with her by the fire. Found it easier, with the firelight and the comaraderie and community to just be. To just be himself, just Cullen, nothing else. Found himself sharing stories that came from a lighter place, little things, funny things, things you’d write home about, if you could ever find the words to put down on paper that didn’t twist and writhe on the page with agony.

Found himself glad that Mia could still laugh–that he could laugh. That he hadn’t squandered their bond with neglect.

Found himself, well into the night, with his sister’s head on his shoulder, staring into the settling flames, while she dozed and he nursed a horn of whisky, and realized there was not a damn sound in his head that didn’t belong.


End file.
